The present invention relates to a video surveillance system and, more particular, to a video surveillance system which records video signals that are compressed at a selectively controlled compression ratio on a record medium.
As is known, a video surveillance system generally is comprised of a video camera and a video tape recorder in which a video signal produced by the camera is recorded on a magnetic tape in the video tape recorder. Such devices further are operable to record the video signal intermittently on the magnetic tape so as to extend the recording time thereof. For example, if a video surveillance system records one frame of the video signal per minute, then sixty hours worth of surveillance could be recorded on a standard two-hour video tape. Such devices further are operable to switch to a continuous recording mode when an "incident" occurs, for example, as when a motion detector is triggered (i.e., detects motion) so as to record a standard video signal (i.e., 30 frames per second) during the duration of the "incident".
One shortcoming of typical surveillance systems is that they do not record a video signal that is useful for inspection purposes for those periods of time at which the video signal is being recorded intermittently. Even though such devices attempt to switch to a continuous recording mode when a particular incident occurs (or when a particular condition exists), there may be other times when such devices are intermittently recording at which it is desired to view, analyze, or otherwise process that which the surveillance system is observing.